


Turn up the lights in here, baby

by hopefor46



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Banter, First Kiss, M/M, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:57:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefor46/pseuds/hopefor46
Summary: The miracle of the Hanukkah RompHim.





	Turn up the lights in here, baby

At first, Tommy assumes it’s on purpose.

Since DeRay suggested it on Twitter, Lovett’s been loudly threatening to wear a romper to work. Not just any romper, but the most garish piece of clothing Tommy’s ever seen in his life. In a Hanukkah pattern, even.

“It’s a RompHim,” Lovett insists.

“That’s not even a word!” Tommy roars. The more he and Favs groan and roll their eyes over the thought of it, the harder Jon pushes, gleeful at the thought of making them both uncomfortable. “My handsome, sartorially deficient boys!” he crows, which sets off the rest of the staff. Tommy didn’t know how expensive novelty holiday wear had gotten these days, but Lovett never let a few dollars stand between him and a joke.

So it doesn’t surprise him when he gets the text. After a long day, Tommy’s in his boxers on the couch with a 21st Amendment IPA and “Thank God for Jokes” on Netflix.

It’s a full-length mirror shot of Lovett wearing the RompHim, with a quizzical expression like: Is this really going to work?

Tommy hits pause and tries to think of a comeback. Hanukkah has 8 nights… Lovett hates doing laundry… it’s unseasonably warm weather… His phone pings again, interrupting his train of thought.

 

**\--Is it unbutton me hot, or tear it off me hot?**

 

Lovett texts constantly, and his mis-sent messages are legendary among their friends. Of course, this must be one of those. So is it the laughing-crying emoji, or laughing-crying on a _tilt_ , or--

 

**\--Would you shove me against a door in this?**

 

Tommy sits up straighter like he’s being watched. Surely he’s about to realize his mistake before Tommy has to tell him. They’ll have a good laugh about it when--

 

**\--Cover me in bed like a blanket**

**\--C’mon**

**\--Tell me what you’d do**

 

Tommy flips back to the photo. Lovett was complaining that he didn’t know what size to order the thing in (“It’s not like I have _another_ romper to work from!”) but it seems to fit just fine. The sleeves are a little more fitted than his usual shirts, maybe a little stretchy, showing off his smooth pale biceps. He’s got two buttons undone, revealing unruly tufts of chest hair to match the single rogue curl hanging over his forehead. His thighs have a solid curve, and his hip is cocked just a little.

 _God, he’s hot_ , Tommy thinks, and immediately regrets it. But it’s too late, he can feel himself reacting to it. Well, that’s… new.

Tommy sets his phone down gingerly and does a lap around his living room, an old habit from his White House days.

Lovett sent him a photo of himself as a joke. He’s sexting him to make Tommy blush. He saw it worked in the office and he’s just tormenting him in surround. Like friends do!

Or maybe... Lovett meant to send it to someone else. Someone he’s been dating (not that Tommy has heard about anyone recently). A friend with benefits, could be. Someone who wouldn’t hesitate to write back and tell him exactly how he would keep Lovett in bed all day.

Tommy’s never been that--good?--at sexting, and this is, well, Jon doesn’t mean it, this is just a long con. But all the jokes have flown out of his head anyway. All he can think is, _is this what he wants?_

Finally Tommy types,

**\--You’re making me blush**

and hits send before he can second-guess himself. Unfortunately, he hears back immediately:

**\--I hope you’ll do more than that.**

Is this how Lovett talks to his--to guys? Other guys? Lovett bosses him around all the time, sure, and he’s been on the receiving end of his flirting, but somehow this is different. It’s different because for a moment, Tommy thinks: _I’m into it._

He’s into it. He’s into the RompHim. Into the mean command of Lovett’s tone.

_Oh, fuck._

Before he can formulate a response, Lovett apparently figures out his mistake.

**\--Tommy?**

**\--FUCK**

The phone rings and rings and Tommy lets it. Finally, he takes his phone to his bedroom and plugs it in, ignoring the 4 missed-call notifications. He’ll just have to deal with the fallout tomorrow at the office. That way, neither of them can do anything embarrassing.

He gets in the shower before it’s all the way warm, closes his eyes into the spray. His mind drags him back to Lovett leaning against the doorframe, in the romper. Pictures himself taking two steps towards him, feeling the slick fabric over the curve of his lower back as he wraps his arms around Lovett’s waist. Catching his head and stroking his hair. Opening another button and sliding his shoulder free…

Tommy braces himself against the tile so he can push into his hand. The sweet agony of it mixes with the guilt. It’s not the first traitorous thought he’s had about Jon (he has to admit). But it never seemed so… immediate before. Like it’s unbearable that he’d never see Jon like that, wanting, when Tommy would be more than happy to--

As he comes he shudders so hard he almost slips in the shower. His brain offers helpfully: Well, that’s over with.

 

In the morning Tommy stretches for twenty-five glorious seconds before he remembers the photo again.

As usual, he gets in a few hours before Lovett, but he wouldn’t say they were the most productive of his Crooked career. When Jon finally comes in he feels himself hunch over his keyboard, trying to look busy. Jon calls out to him anyway:

“Ah, Tommy, can we meet in Little Marco for a minute? Got some stuff to go over for the tour,” Lovett says. He punches the words “stuff” and “tour,” artificially casual, counting on the rest of the office to zone out.

Lovett looks like he’s going to slam the door, but at the last minute changes his mind.

“So, um. About what happened,” he says, quiet but with an edge. Tommy’s cheeks are already heating up. He feels transparent as Jon scans him for reactions.

“I want you to know, it was an accident--”

“Granted--

“--and I hope we can keep it just between us.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, not recognizing his compacted growl.

“And if I find out,” Lovett says under his breath, “that you sent that picture to anyone--”

“I didn’t!” It comes out high and shrieky, like Tommy can’t control his own voice.

“--living OR dead, I WILL come and kill you.”

“Jon, I promise you, I didn’t--I wouldn’t--” Tommy feels his face going hot. “I get it.”

“Did you tell anyone about the picture?”

“No!”

“Will you delete all the--all the messages?”

“Listen, I won’t, I promise.”

“Just delete the whole--” Jon reaches out for Tommy’s pocket, grazing his thigh in the place where his phone usually is. Tommy feels a bolt of lightning travel up his spine. Not great.

“No! Dude, it goes back, like, two years.” Tommy fishes his phone out of his back pocket and holds it over his head, even though he knows it will just make Jon angry.

“Ugh, what a bully,” Lovett says.

“Just trust me,” Tommy pleads.

“I would kill you, though, remember.”

Before he can re-route his brain Tommy blurts out like an idiot, “You looked good.”

“I what?”

“Good--it was a good picture,” he finishes lamely.

Lovett stares at Tommy with his brow furrowed, his mouth open. Normally he only sees that face when C-SPAN is on. Finally he whispers, “Are you fucking with me?”

He leaves the conference room before Tommy can ask any of his thousand stupid questions, like _Who were those messages for?_ or _What if I wanted it?_  

 

It’s not Tommy’s fault that it just keeps coming up around the office. Elijah accidentally shows up in the same color shirt and shorts, and everyone piles on with a romper joke. Corinne tells a long-winded story about the dry cleaner by the office who screwed her over and ends it with “So Jon, in case you were going to take your RompHim there…”

Lovett takes it all in stride, but Tommy notices he’s stopped making the jokes himself, just nods absently whenever they come up. He wonders if Jon ever got--if the messages he sent Tommy by accident ever reached their target. If he ever wore the romper for anyone else.

Jon would find it hilarious if he ever knew how much Tommy thinks about it. That’s the irony of it, that he can’t tell Jon, because Jon would never allow it.

DeRay, who honestly started this whole mess, even brings it up on the podcast when they’re doing promo--and to Tommy’s surprise, gets Lovett to admit that he’s received it.

“Jon, Tommy, have either of you guys seen it?”

Lovett’s head whips around to Tommy. He’s wearing a red Friend of the Pod shirt that stretches a little across his chest. Tommy’s mind wanders. _Is it a little tighter than usual? That’s such a good color on him. Almost as good as blue. Oh God, brain, shut up._

“Nope,” says Favs sunnily, like a baby.

Tommy swallows. “Haven’t been that hashtag blessed,” he says flatly, hoping it sounds snarky enough to the audience.

When Lovett catches his eye again, he nods shortly in thanks. They still have a dozen ad reads to get to but suddenly, the room is too small.

“Is it hot in here? Someone get Tommy a glass of water,” Favs calls out to the production team.

“I’ll get it myself,” Tommy pinches out, thankful for an escape.

He stops by the bathroom and thinks about splashing his face with water, movie-style, but then he’ll just get water all over his shirt and it’ll stick. Then he thinks about Jon getting splashed with water, if his shirt would cling to his broad shoulders, outlining each muscle… and he can feel his face getting hot again. He leaves the bathroom and pretends he needs to go back to his desk to get notes.

“What did you, go all the way to the Parachute store?” Lovett laughs when he sits back down.

Since he can’t escape it, Tommy decides to go on the offensive.

“Indochino! You can pick the style, the cut, the lining… maybe they’ll even make a shorts suit.”

“Can’t imagine why anyone would want that,” Lovett says drily.

“Or a romper!”

“That’s not a suit, Tommy.”

“All to your customization! For those formal occasions when you also need to…” Tommy runs out of ideas. He’s not as good at the riffing. He looks to Favs for a bail-out but Favs just blinks back at him, bewildered. “Not… tuck in… a shirt?”

“That’s not how they work,” Lovett says, rolling his eyes. When they turn the mics off he makes a point of raising his eyebrows at Tommy and shaking his head, like: Don’t play me at this game. Tommy knows that. Boy, does he ever.

  


Tommy sits in the car outside Elijah’s house where the unofficial Crooked Hanukkah party is in full swing. It’s fine. It’ll be even easier for him to keep his eyes carefully trained on Lovett’s forehead, which is safe. He definitely hasn’t thought about what the RompHim will look like in person, how many buttons Lovett will leave open. Whether the sleeves will ride up and…

His forehead accidentally hits the horn and he remembers he’s still lurking outside like a creep. Well, time to get it over with.

Only when he goes in, Lovett’s not wearing the romper at all. He’s got an ugly shirt with Rudolph’s antlers serving as a menorah, which everyone loves even though he proclaims himself to be a disaster (“I _need_ a haircut!”) Tommy can see a store tag sticking out of the back of the collar and suddenly wants to carefully snip it off--what if it scratches?--resting his other hand on Lovett’s sweet neck.

Tommy coughs and deliberately makes the rounds away from where Lovett is holding court. It feels like he talks to everyone in the living room except Lovett. So of course when he sneaks away to get another beer, there he is in the kitchen, mixing a cocktail next to the sink. He looks ridiculous and Tommy still wants to press him into a wall.

Before he can stop himself, Tommy blurts out, “You didn’t--you didn’t get dressed up.”

“Of course I did,” Jon laughs. “What do you call this?”

“You know what I mean.”

Lovett shrugs. “Didn’t get positive feedback. No feedback, really,” but Tommy can see his ears pinking up underneath his hair. “Besides, I don’t see you in festivewear, Vietor.” Tommy had a Patriots holiday sweater but he left it in the car. If he thought he was warm before, now he’s positively sweating. _Maybe I’ll faint and cause a company-wide incident._

“S’no big deal.”

“I think you owe it to me.”

“To what?”

“To wear something stupid.” Lovett smirks, reading in Tommy’s face the same normal level of embarrassment. Not realizing. “Level the playing field a little.”

“Jon--”

“Though I guess by our founder charter your looks are one-third mine anyway. I think that’s how it works.”

“Gonna make me wear yours, then?”

“What?”

“Are you gonna make me wear your shirt?”

Jon’s mouth drops open. “Are you asking for… that’s weird, Tommy.”

Tommy takes a swig of beer to cover for the fact that he has no idea what he’s doing. “Guess I won’t be festive then. Too bad.”

“All… right, but you have to give me yours,” Jon ventures. “And turn around. And don’t look at me.”

Tommy tugs off his white short-sleeve henley and passes it over his shoulder to Jon, who is looking at him with a face so blank and carefully constructed. He shakes his head quickly with a _whuff_ and gestures with his hands. Tommy wants to cheat, but he doesn’t.

“Okay, fine,” Jon calls out. The reindeer shirt is a little tight and the sleeves don’t go all the way down to Tommy’s wrists. He feels foolish. Jon, of course, looks completely comfortable, soft and touchable, except for he’s doing up the buttons as Tommy’s eyes track directly to his throat.

“Satisfied?” Jon asks. “Ugh, look at you.”

Tommy is not satisfied. But he doesn’t know how to even start with him.

“Looks good,” he says unevenly.

“You look like you’re about to bully me into a corner and take away my lunch money.”

“That what you want?”

“...my lunch money?”

Tommy steps forward, feeling all limbs like a giraffe, but he has to make himself clear. Jon takes a step back, into the joint created by the cabinets. “Is that what you like?”

Jon laughs like a cough. “You mean, in--in general? Or from you?”

“I would do it.”

“Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,” Jon chides softly, but nervous. “Don’t you know _I_ make the jokes around here? That’s what the _New York Times_ said.”

“I… would.” Tommy’s blushing furiously, happy the room is half in shadows because Jon was too lazy to flip on all the lights.

“How long,” Jon says. “Since two weeks ago?”

“Since… longer.” Tommy lets himself look at the floor.

“And what.” Jon sounds a little out of breath. “What if I said… it was okay?”

“I’d go over right now and kiss you.”

“...Okay, since you claim you aren’t kidding.”

Jon has his elbows against the kitchen counter, but he’s not smiling any more. His head swivels to each side, like he wants them to be interrupted.

Tommy takes the last step forward, with just enough room between them that Lovett could get away. He leans down and catches Jon’s chin in one hand, tilts his face up. Jon’s a bird and Tommy’s just trying to get him not to startle. The kiss is just a gentle brush that hits Tommy like a bolt of lightning. Then he does it again, because Jon’s mouth is so warm and suddenly his lips are parting and Tommy gets a hand into Jon’s hair. He pauses to catch his breath and Jon tilts up, bites his lower lip gently. Time stops between their two mouths.

Tommy lets his hand slide over Jon’s neck, holding his shoulder. He doesn’t risk undoing a button, but he pulls the neck of his shirt aside to kiss the little hollow over Jon’s collarbone, trace it with his tongue. Let his other hand sneak up Jon’s sleeve, brush the soft skin on his upper arms, maddening--

“--Wait,” Jon says, breathless. Tommy drops his hands in a hurry and jumps back. Rubs his thighs, twitchy, anxious.

“One,” Jon pants, “I can’t believe this is happening. Two, you better take me home right now.”

They sneak out Elijah’s side door, passing a befuddled Tanya on their way out.

“We just need to make a quick phone call,” Tommy lies recklessly. “Don’t bother the ops team! Enjoy the party!”

“Hey, isn’t that shirt--” Tanya calls out behind them.

Without talking about it suddenly they’re standing outside Tommy’s car, where he dimly realizes they’ll both have to drive if they don’t want to get caught.  

"My place," he blurts out. "No! Your place." Jon shakes his head. "Has to be yours."

"Why?" Tommy holds his gaze for a long moment, unable to shake the words.

When he finally gets it, Jon looks at his feet. "It's in my car."

It’s Tommy's turn to feel embarrassed. Of course, Jon had wanted someone else to see him in it. That was how this whole thing started. And why shouldn't he? Jon should have anyone he wants, everything. Maybe he doesn’t even want this, Tommy thinks. This is too much, over the din of his bad lizard brain hissing, _I want you all to myself._

“...You know," Tommy said, locking eyes with the steering wheel, "Maybe this isn’t a good--"

"--I was gonna return it," Jon says quietly.

“You what?”

“Return it,’ Jon says. “Free postage at work, you know.” He looks at Tommy desperately. "I--look, this is what I look like, okay? I just don't, I'm not some--"

Tommy grabs Jon by the shoulders and pushes him against the car, taking him off balance just a little bit, kissing him hard. Hears Lovett moan sweetly against his mouth as he rubs his thumbs against the stubble on his cheeks. Knows anyone could be watching them, but he doesn’t give a shit. After a minute, Tommy pushes away with effort. "You have never been more wrong about anything," he says, circling around to the driver’s side.

“Meet you at yours,” Jon calls.

 

Jon makes Tommy stay in his own front hall while he ducks into the bedroom. “I gotta say, this is a little weird for me,” Jon shouts back at him. “I mean, they call us the Chosen People, but really--”

“Hurry up already,” Tommy calls fondly.

“I’ll give the orders, thanks!”

When Lovett steps out of the kitchen he’s wearing the romper. He tilts his head, looks up at Tommy through his eyelashes. He actually looks a little shy. It makes Tommy’s pulse race.

Then he turns sideways and raises his arm, does an exaggerated flex. Tommy laughs with relief, even as his eye travels along the curve of Lovett’s back to his ass.  

“Enough like the picture?”

“Better,” Tommy says.

“Get over here and show me.”

“Okay, Jack LaLanne.”

“What are you, 90?”

The fabric is thin and slick, barely anything, and Tommy’s hands slide right over it. One of Jon’s arms circles his waist, pulling him in even closer. Tommy feels drunk with it, like he could stand here all night just to touch. 

“So smooth,” he says stupidly in Lovett’s ear, hands finding his hips so he can press them together for friction.

“Geez, what happened to you in that Halloween store…” Lovett jokes, but Tommy can tell he’s starting to lose the plot a little, especially when he gets one hand on Lovett’s ass, just circling, touching.

“I’m like a sexy long-distance biker. Is that what does it for you?”

 _Shut up_ , Tommy thinks, and smiles into Lovett’s hair knowing he won’t say it.

“Are you gonna-- _wow_ , Tommy--” Tommy scoops him up and presses him against the wall, Lovett’s legs knit around him.

“ _So_ demanding,” Tommy whispers into his ear, licking its sweet pink whorl. Lovett laughs, warm in his arms, and he can feel it along every nerve ending.

“You like it,” Jon chortles. “Now get me out of this thing, fast.”


End file.
